The Perfect Two
by zzzooe
Summary: /"I have concurred that friendship, or becoming allied forces, are the only way to survive life in this terrible concrete jungle." Puck was still too stunned to do anything but nod and he wondered what the hell he was getting himself into./ Puckleberry.


**This is my first puckleberry, but hopefully I've read enough to capture 'bad boy Puck.' God, I adore him!**** This is after 'Journey' but not including Season 2.**

**Lyrics are from: The Perfect Two - By Auburn. This is rated 'T' for Puck's crude language.  
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**SO, enjoy the badassness of one sexy Puckerone. (:  
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* * *

"_You can be the tear that I cry if we ever split."_

Her moment was shattered all too quickly, falling like a fragile heart and breaking into a million pieces. Even when she was trying not to cry and telling herself that it was 'not really meant to be.' she could hear the undeniable lie in her own voice. Finn was meant to be the prince charming to her damsel in distress quality, yet it didn't work out like a fairytale. High School _wasn't_ a fairytale, with Quinn knocked up by Puck, giving up their little baby Beth and the social hierarchy swaying like an unstable human pyramid that the Cheerios used to win Nationals – the sway of who was worth hanging around with, who was worth screwing and who deserved a slushie in their face.

Rachel knew that it wasn't fair.

So when she took tentative steps into Glee and found Puck – _Noah_ – sitting solemnly at one of the chairs and strumming his guitar to a tune that was a mixture of self-pity and regret encapsulated in a melody of feelings she decided it was time to stop moping around and get on with her life. She needed to be as determined as she could be – because Finn was just a boy. Even in her future acting and singing career, she knew that every role she tried for wouldn't be right for her and she had to keep moving on.

Starting by doing the most selfless thing she had ever done in her life – help someone in the same situation as her. And so, she befriended Puck – _Noah_, because she could still remember that week when he had been hers and she saw the real him – and it ended up being one of the best decisions she had ever made in her whole life.

* * *

"_You can be the hero and I can be your side kick."_

This is how their unorthodox friendship was sparked, by one Rachel Barbra Berry.

"What are you playing Noah?" she asked, after standing at the door and listening for a while, as he picked at the strings of his lyric-less melody.

"It's Puck, Berry. And I'm not playing anything… I'm just playing."

"Oh." (More like mourning the loss of Beth, the baby that was never his, and Quinn, who had been transferred to another school by her parents.)

Rachel knew that starting a friendship between them was going to be harder than she thought, but she was hoping that he could at least try, you know.

"You know, Noah, I think that while we're in this current predicament we can remedy a solution…-"

Puck simply tuned her out, wondering where the hell his fucking badassness had disappeared to and why that crazy midget Berry was sounded like a damn Wikipedia page while she wouldn't shut up. Why couldn't all the hot chicks just zip it once in a while?

And he didn't deny that Rachel was hot, because he knew that underneath those goddamned animal sweaters and those skirts the size of a belt and the ugly knee socks, that there was a damn fine body. With legs that went on for forever, a flat stomach and amazing tits – although Rachel was crazy-ass strict about his wandering hands – she was just about the hottest girl in school.

Too bad she wouldn't close her mother fucking mouth.

And now, she was looking expectantly at him, unaware to the fact that he had not heard a fucking word he said.

"In English, Berry?" he grunted, hoping he'd get the idea of what the hell she was blabbering on about.

"We should be friends."

There was a stunned silence, in which Puck's jaw dropped to the floor.

"What?"

"Well, since we are both suffering from a bout of loneliness and we have nothing that can help alleviate the situation, I have concurred that friendship, or becoming allied forces, are the only way to survive life in this terrible concrete jungle."

Puck was still too stunned to do anything but nod and he wondered what the hell he was getting himself into.

* * *

"_You can be the rain from the cloud when it's stormin'."_

When Puck and Rachel rocked up to school together, and Puck wasn't as empty eyed as he usually was, rumours spread like wildfire. By second period, Puck and Rachel had eloped to Vegas after fucking in the boy's locker room showers and Rachel was pregnant with a pair of twins. How the fuck people came up with this stuff, Puck didn't know.

After meeting Rachel before her third period Biology class he found it unnerving the way everyone whispered as he walked past. I mean sure, Puck was the subject of gossip five days out of seven – you see that? Fractions. Rachel forced him to go to his first Math class in two goddamned years – but usually it was about whatever Cheerio he screwed or how many parties he'd gotten drunk at in the weekend. This time, it was about the scandal of hot, badass Puck being friends with the midget Rachel Berry from _Glee_ club.

And for the first time in years? Puck didn't give a shit.

Rachel wasn't used to walking down the corridors with Puck – _Noah_ still, although he insisted on being referred to as Puck, his insolent little nickname – except that brief time when they were dating. But being friends with him? It was different… it was nice.

Most of the time they hung out while he educated her on action movies and she cooked dinner for him when his mum worked. Once, she even forced him to watch one of her soppy, Broadway movies – some shit about the West-Side and he didn't like it one bit. (Well maybe he liked it a bit too much and maybe he liked the way Rachel's face lit up when she watched it… but tell anyone and he'll throw you in the nearest dumpster.) Once in a while they chilled out – drinking slushies, not throwing them – and having some type of international takeout while Rachel put some music on that they ended up singing to.

She even asked him to sing 'Sweet Caroline' again. He agreed without hesitation.

A few weeks after he and Rachel had become friends, he was walking (more like strutting) down a corridor after school on the way to baseball practice. All of a sudden, Finn was in his face, looking furious.

"What are you doing to Rachel?" Finn growled, almost spitting on Puck's face.

"What the _fuck_ man?"

"What are you doing to her?"

Puck blinked. Then he laughed.

Then he got Finn's fist in his face, and _goddamn-mother-fucker_ it hurt. That guy had one hell of a right-hook.

"You stay away from Rachel. She's a better person that you can ever be and you don't have the right to spoil it," he whispered menacingly to Puck, who was still pinned down by Finn's large frame, "Got it, Puck?"

Finn took Puck's grunt as an affirmation and stood up, stalking away.

When Puck turned up at Rachel's house fifteen minutes later, Rachel was the one who wiped his face, cleaned the split lip he got and iced the black eye that was already forming.

"I don't care what Finn says, Noah. You're the best friend I've ever had. It's my choice to be your friend and I don't give a _damn _what he thinks," she huffed.

Puck was too busy smirking at Rachel's use of 'damn' (he was _so_ rubbing off on her) to correct the use of his first name.

* * *

"_Or you can be the sun when it shines in the mornin'."_

Even when Rachel was blabbering on at a million-words-per-minute speed in front of the whole Glee club about stuff that he couldn't give a shit about, he kind of (sort of) listened. Never mind the fact that it wasn't important, but if no one else was going to listen – even Mr. Schue, what the fuck? Wasn't a teacher supposed to listen or some shit? – then he was going to. He was Rachel's friend and that was the least he could do for all the crap she put up with.

And actually, this got him fed up.

"What the _fuck_ guys? I know that you can't care about this shit, but can't you at least listen?" he yelled at the other Glee kids.

"Language, Puck!" Mr. Schue shouted, although awkwardly after being caught not listening.

"So no one was listening to me?" Rachel whispered, and Puck swore he heard her voice crack.

Most of the Glee kids just rolled their eyes, waiting for another outburst from Rachel, but with her standing in the middle of the choir room, just biting her lip, Puck though she looked so damn _vulnerable_. That wasn't the usual dramatic Rachel he knew.

When she turned and left, without a word, everyone was shocked. They expected some type of yelling match or a melodramatic performance. They didn't expect Rachel to quietly leave, hot tears streaming down her face.

"Come on!" Puck yelled, "Can't you see that she cares a hell of a lot more than you guys? She spends her time thinking about how she can get us, _all of us_, to win sectionals, regionals and nationals and this is how you repay her? You make me feel sick.

"I don't care if you dislike her, but if you're going to sit there and do nothing then I don't care what bullshit excuse you have, you can just leave. She's giving all she has to this club and I'll be damned if I don't want her to have the best _fucking_ time of her life sharing her talent with you. This club would be nothing without you, and you know that. The way you're treating her? It's wrong. You should be ashamed of yourselves," Puck hissed, before stalking out of the room.

"I woke up this morning and forgot my name." Brittany said.

And when Puck finds Rachel in the girl's bathroom he doesn't hesitate to walk right in and wrap his arms around her, because Rachel Barbra Berry needed a hug from her best friend.

Rachel smiles.

* * *

"_But I don't care as long as we're together."_

By the time Puck's black eye had faded and the Glee club had apologised to Rachel, everything was finally going smoothly. Rachel had forgotten all about her moments with Finn, and Puck had gotten over the loss of his child and his first love, Quinn – although he decided that it wasn't really love when he didn't have her.

When Sectionals grew close and Puck was assigned the male lead alongside Rachel, nobody batted an eyelid. Finn had long since had the same enthusiasm for singing, having finally accepted that what Rachel and Puck had was a real, honest friendship and there was nothing they could do about it.

The day before Sectionals, Rachel and Puck were hanging at Puck's house, his mum at work and his little sister, Hannah, at a friend's house.

"Are you prepared for tomorrow, Noah?"

"Yeah, I suppose. Hopefully it isn't as bad as last time!" he joked.

Rachel frowned, "I hope not. Sue Sylvester is a bitch and I will personally hunt her down if she tries to hurt us again."

Puck burst out laughed and Rachel looked appalled as she realised what she had said.

"You're rubbing off on me, Noah."

"Yeah, I am. Me and my badassness, Rach."

"Sure," she rolled her eyes.

Puck looked across to Rachel, where she sat smiling at him. His heart beat faster and he knew that he was turning into a fucking pussy. Feeling butterflies in his stomach while looking at a girl? That wasn't the way the Puckerone worked. He wondered if he was going to have to use tampons and watch rom-coms now.

But he knew that this friendship wasn't normal. He had liked Rachel ever since she broke up with him, and he wasn't denying it. So, he did the only thing that popped to his mind.

"Wanna make out?" he asked Rachel.

"Sure," Rachel smiled. Finally, the boy got a clue.

"I mean, we're a pair of good looking Jews-, what?" Puck stopped.

"I thought you'd never ask, Noah."

So, that's what they did. They knew what they had wasn't normal and it wasn't going to be. He was crude, sexy and outspoken, while she was innocent, gorgeous and scarily dedicated. It was going to be an uphill battle, but it just fitted together, like two pieces of a puzzle.

Puck and Rachel – Noah and Rach: There was nothing better. Together, they would survive the woes and the wars of the concrete jungle. What they had wouldn't even be perfect and when they whispered broken: _"I love you's"_ there wouldn't be a romantic, soppy quality about it.

But Rachel definitely became a bit more badass.

"_Cause you are the one for me. And I'm the one for you for you. You take the both of us. And we're the perfect two."_

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**Go on, flame me. I dare you.**_  
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